First Team

Robbie: Frustrating

Robbie Neilson accepts that the correct decision was made to postpone today's match.

Robbie Neilson admits today’s postponement against Partick Thistle is frustrating, but respects the referee’s decision to call the game off.

Things were looking good - with the pitch in the same condition as it was prior to the recent matches against Aderdeen, Celtic and Hibs and all of those occasions the surface recovered sufficiently for the games to go ahead - until a sudden flurry of sleet and snow left the pitch waterlogged, with the water table being too high to make the game playable.

After 23 matches on the Tynecastle turf so far this season, it was a stretch too far to recover.

The head coach admits the right decision had been reached, with both players and fans' safety at the forefront, and conditions scheduled to get worse.

Speaking to Hearts News, he said: “It’s obviously very frustrating to have the game called off.

“Everyone here wanted the game on, and the groundstaff worked tirelessly to achieve that.

“We wanted to carry on the momentum from our great win in Dingwall during the week.

“However the pitch was waterlogged, and the referee made the right call as it would’ve been too dangerous to try and play it.

“We’ll now head off for training and begin our preparations for Tuesday night’s Scottish Cup game against Hibs.”